Mulayam makes a failed attempt to reach out to left

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav made a failed attempt to get Left parties to lead a non-Congress, non-BJP front ahead of the next general elections.

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav made a failed attempt to get Left parties to lead a non-Congress, non-BJP front ahead of the next general elections even before his relations with Congress appeared to sour. Yadav's failed move indicates that he had been looking to ditch the UPA sooner than commonly assumed.

ET has learnt that Yadav, whose party lends critical outside support to the Congress-led government at the Centre, had reached out to Left parties before his outbursts against Congress turned especially vicious after DMK withdrew support and provocations from erstwhile colleague Beni Prasad Verma.

Yadav wrote a signed letter to the general secretaries of CPM and CPI in February, about the time when he started exhorting his party workers to prepare for early polls, but his slippery track record kept the Left parties from warming up to the idea, said a senior leader. Yadav's move came even after Left cold-shouldered a similar effort, via the late Socialist leader Mastram Kapoor, in end 2012.

In his letter, Yadav proposed a third front like pre-poll arrangement under the guidance and coordination of Left parties. "Mulayam even proposed the name of a veteran communist leader to be the convenor of such a front," said the leader, adding that Yadav argued that people were disgusted with the politics and policies of both the national parties and the coalitions they led.

Hence, he said, there was a political space for a third national alliance with the Left and non-UPA, non-NDA parties that could provide an alternative to the electorates. Senior CPM and CPI leaders recalled how Yadav's party had ditched the Left-anchored third front in the past, supporting the NDA government's presidential nominee APJ Abdul Kalam and in 2008 backed the UPA on the India-US nuclear deal.

"In the meeting held to discuss the proposal, the Left leaders also felt that Mulayam Singh Yadav's proposal of a non-Congress front while he remained an outside supporter of UPA government was both unrealistic and embarrassing," the leader said, adding that the senior leaders therefore subtly and politely conveyed to Yadav the practical difficulties in accepting his proposal.

The recipients of Yadav's letter remained unavailable for comment. CPM general secretary Prakash Karat had, however, told ET in an interview last month that the Left parties would not project a third front before the polls.

The SP chief later publicly announced that his party would not pull the rug from under UPA's feet because it did not want to be seen helping the main opposition BJP. In a recent meeting with a senior Left leader in Lucknow, Yadav claimed Congress could spring a surprise by advancing the elections scheduled in 2014 to any time after the Karnataka assembly polls in May.

Yadav told the senior communist leader that if Congress wins the Karnataka polls it could opt for Lok Sabha polls by October-November by advancing and clubbing the December-end state polls in Delhi, MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh with the general elections.

The Left parties maintain that it was futile to forge a third political front unless all partners committed themselves to alternate programmes and policies.